Esset and Los Iluminados: Religious Break Out
by VitroBlue
Summary: Aya's sister and Sakura were kidnapped by Esset minions, and the mission to rescue them draws Weiss to Spain. They soon find themselves in the middle of a dangerous plot towards world domination. Crossover Weiss and Resident Evil 4. R&R! Spoilers inside
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes: 

This story is not meant to be a walkthrough of any kind. It starts at the point when Leon and Luis first met and are about to be sliced through in the little cottage. As a fanfictioner, I reserve myself the right to twist the plot of both the game and the anime as I see fit. Whatever I didn't get from the cutscenes of the game, I put it between. Whatever is between // is supposed to be said in Japanese. I put in here a SPOILERS warning about both the game and the anime. Don't like, don't read.

I don't own Weiss nor Resident Evil 4.

* * *

Chapter 1: Encounter 

Leon woke up. And to his surprise he is sitting on the filthy floor of a filthy little room, completely tied up. When he tries to stand up he realizes he is not alone. That weird guy from the closet was unconscious there and they were both tied to each other.

"Hey... Hey, wake up." he said pushing the man.  
"Ay ay ay" the other said shaking his head and looking around "crawl out of one hole and into another"  
"You wanna tell me what is going on here"  
"Americano, si? Now what brings a bloke like you to this part of the world? Ow!" the man protested when Leon tried to move "hey! Easy... Whoever you are"  
"My name is Leon. I came here looking for this girl. Have you seen her"  
"What? Are you supposed to be a cop or something?... Nah, you don't look the type"  
"Maybe..." said Leon trying to figure out a way to get the hell out of there.  
"Okeeeeeeey, let me guess... Is she the president's daughter"  
"That's too good for a guess. Wanna start explaining?" demanded Leon turned as much as he could towards the guy at his back.  
"Psychic powers." said the other "Nah, just kidding with you, amigo. I overheard one of the villagers talking something about the president's daughter in the church."

"/Hey, guys, I think I spotted where the prisoners are.../" said Ken with the intercom from his hidden spot on the roof of a building.  
"/We are on the way./" answered Youji, who already knew where his partner was heading before.  
"/Keep your position, Siberian./" ordered Aya.  
"/Sorry, but this doesn't looks any good./" Ken's voice sounded hesitating. He had spotted the cottage where 'the prisoners' were kept just because he had overheard some guards saying they have to dispose of them. He wasn't so sure such prisoners were the ones they were looking for but still he went to check on that... Only to see how a man all bloodied up dragged along a huge ax towards the cottage, mumbling something about killing and growling like a beast. "/You better hurry up. I might have to interfere on whatever's going on in there"  
"Got it." again it was Youji who spoke. He got not even the classical 'hn' from Aya.

"And you might you be?" asked Leon.  
"Me llamo Luis Sera, I used to be a cop in Madrid. Now I'm just a good for nothing guy who happens to be quite the ladies man"  
"Why'd you quit?" asked Leon again.  
"Pf, policía... You put your life on the line and nobody will appreciate you enough for it. Being a hero isn't what's cracked up to be anymore"  
"I used to be a cop myself, only for a day though"  
"I thought I was bad"  
"Somehow I managed to get myself involved with the incident of Raccoon City on my first day on the force"  
"That is the incident with the viral outbreak, right? ", Leon nodded. "...I think I might seen some samples of the virus on the lab at the department."

"Los voy... a matar." When the bloodied guy with the ax who Ken spotted from outside just came inside the room, both Leon and Luis tried to get out of his way. But the ties were too good, so they didn't got any far.  
"Do something, cop!" demanded Luis.  
"After you." replied Leon.  
Then the man prepared his ax, but all it cut was the ties on both men wrists. Luis and Leon rolled away from him right before he prepared another deadly blow. The Spanish ran towards the exit and fled as fast as he could. But right when Leon was gonna get his head sliced, a guy broke in and slammed the ax man's head against the wall. Or that's what Leon though at first, before watching him take out some kind of blades from the guy's neck into his glove.

"So what? You think you are wolverine or something?" said Leon to the man while he stood up. He was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, weird leather gloves, goggles on his head and a brown leather jacket - somehow he had lost his orange lucky sweater, thank goodness. Ken didn't knew what to answer, he didn't speak enough English.  
Right then, another two men got into the place. The one on the left was a tall blonde man with sunglasses, wire-manipulating gloves, boots, black leather coat. The other one was a redhead a little less tall than the blonde - but tall none the less -, in a dark leather coat, boots and with something like a Japanese sword on his hand.  
The three of them didn't look quite serious. What kind of guys go around dressing like that? Specially the blonde one had all the looks of a stripper more than anything else, but that redhead man... Something on his eyes screamed danger. Instinctively Leon draw his hand to his gun very slowly.

"Leave that alone." said the redhead with the hell of authority. His English had a slight weird accent, he was not native speaker but he was pretty good at it. "Identify yourself"  
The other two didn't pay them anymore attention. The blonde was on the door, maybe taking guard. The shorter of the three was investigating the corpse and the rest of the room. 'So the redhead is the leader' thought Leon.  
"Who are you, people?" said Leon a little distracted by the whole weird situation.  
"Weiss" said the blonde without facing him, just looking outside.

"Nani mo nai, Abyssinian." said the brunette. Both the other two seemed to ignore him while he just sat on a near box, waiting for the next instructions.

"You better answer him" said the blonde again "and make it quick"  
"...I'm Leon Kennedy. I came all the way from the United States to rescue the president's daughter who was kidnapped." Leon took out the photo again and showed it to them but the only one who looked at it was the blonde; actually he just gave it a side glance. "Sources told me she might be here, somewhere." "/Too young for me.../" said Youji.  
"/What is it, Balinese?/" asked Ken standing up.  
"/More kidnappings. Abyssinian sure is not liking this/"  
Then, a bipping sound interrupted the interview. It was Leon intercom; Ingrid Hunnigan, the agent's only contact in this mission, was calling him. Leon answered before anyone could do anything, trying to buy sometime. Even if Hunnigam had news for him, he didn't mind having eavesdroppers as he though all of them were in the same mess. If not, then someone would be dead by now...  
"It's Leon." said the special agent trying to look natural for the woman. "Sorry I couldn't get in touch sooner but I was a bit tied up"  
"But you're okay, right"  
"I'm fine. There was a male civilian held captive. According to him, Ashley's in a church somewhere"  
"What happened to him?"  
"He managed to escape."  
"Do you have a fix on the location of that church?"  
"No, but apparently, there's a secret passage in the village that leads there. I'm heading back to the village."  
"Why didn't you told her about us?" asked the redhead.  
"You don't look like the people around. I bet we are in the same mess here".  
Aya glared at Leon. He might was about to say something but Youji cut off his inspiration  
"Hey...!" Youji said nothing more than that and he just hid from the outside view. Watching that, the redhead prepared his sword and stood by the door while the brunette crawled between both of them. Leon was surprised with the speed on which they moved and the lack of words they needed to coordinate themselves. That required a lot of practice, he had to recognize it. Then it came to his mind why they've done that, realization striking him like lightning. Someone was coming. He just barely managed to get hold of his gun when an odd person appeared outside the window.

"Over here, stranger." the man on the black clothes said. Leon, was quite confused. Then both the blonde and the redhead looked at him, telling him to hurry up without speaking. "It's a strange thing after another..." he sighed and went outside with his gun at hand. He didn't see Youji walking towards the parapet outside the cabin to take a look outside, but he could barely hear the other two walking behind him.  
They walked carefully to the back of the house...

"I've got a stock of good things on sale, stranger. Welcome" the man opened his coat and the amazing load of weapons visible was so amazing it earned a single Aya's eyebrow lift. More than quickly enough Leon bought a map of the place and the shotgun. If everything around was gonna take the looks of what happened on Raccoon City six years before, this time Leon was going to be prepared.  
"What is going on here?" said Aya to him.  
"I don't quite know. But personal experience had taught me not to take peculiar situations lightly."

"Also, I have something that might interest you too." said the merchant to the japanese men, lending something to them. It was a black leather dart case.  
"/Omi's case!/" said Ken taking it from the merchant's hands.  
Faster than the blink of an eye, the merchant found himself pined against the wall with Aya's sword against his yugular.  
"Where did you find that?" he whispered poisonly.  
"Hey, calm down..." Leon was about to interfere but he found his neck threatened by the blades of the brunette's glove.  
"On the way to the village, stranger." said the merchant as if he had not a sword so dangerously close.  
"Where are them? Where is our partner?" demanded Aya.  
"I don't know. They took the kid along... Maybe to the church, stranger."

"Abyssinian!" The blonde appeared. Again he said nothing, but the others got the message. "/They got Bombay/" said the brunette giving the leather case to him.  
"Motherfuckers..." growled the other as they all took positions to fight.  
"/Where to"  
"/To the church!/" said Abyssinian springing out of the gate with his sword drawn, slicing through everything that blocked their way.

Leon was surprised of their aggressiveness... Well, their leader aggressiveness. The path before them was too narrow for the other two to fight along with him. As soon as they could, they split up and start killing everything in sight which gave Leon the opportunity to spot a huge door at the back of the place. "Hey, Red!" he screamed, while heading for the door and disposing of any nearby enemies. "There's a door back there! It might be the exit"  
He was not sure if he was heard, but he approached that place anyway. Soon enough there were no more enemies around.

Leon was examining the door by the time the others reached him.  
"We are going to need some kind of key..." he said when he heard them approach him. "Something must fit inside this huge hole to let us open it"  
"/What is it"  
"/We need to stuck something in there to open the door, it seems./" explained Youji.  
"/I saw a chest back there, it looked suspicious. I'll investigate./" said Ken.  
"/I saw a chest over there too," said Youji pointing to a high platform "I'll go take a look./"

They left quickly leaving Aya to lean against the door with his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest.  
"So, you too are looking for someone here? Where are you from? Japan?" Asked Leon, but he didn't got an answer. "Alright"  
"If you hadda call me some way" said Aya when he noticed his partners were coming back With some plates, "make it Abyssinian"  
"Abyssinian... Alright. And... Who are those two"  
"/We got them./" said Ken showing his part of the key to his leader.  
"/This should open the door./" said Youji placing it on the door and taking Ken's piece too. "/It's open./" "Balinese... " said Aya looking at Leon.  
"Huh?" and Youji turned to him.  
"And Siberian"  
"Nani?  
"Iko." Aya turned and entered the gate silently.

Both Youji and Ken looked at each other, then at Leon. "Congratulations, Leon." said the blonde while the three of them followed Aya. "You made him actually speak to you. Consider it a miracle"  
"If you say so"  
"I mean it. Now you realize the four of us are nothing but a bunch of cats..."

The group walked down the path to find themselves another door. Aya slightly opened it and peeked inside. There were more of those guys and the whole place looked like some mines. There was no point on making it quietly towards wherever the exit was. He just told the others how many enemies he could spot at both sides and then broke in; the others followed bringing chaos around. There weren't many of those villagers so they were quickly disposed of. Once inside, they headed through a door on the right wall, killing 3 more villagers inside.

At the far corner of the room, there was an opening from where they could jump out... "/If Bombay were here with us he could easily get rid of those guys./" said Ken having spotted a couple of men carrying around some dynamite ahead.  
"/This guys are fucking nuts./" added Youji.  
Leon saw them too, and almost without warning he got behind a rail carriage shooting the dynamite with his handgun so it would explode on those guys.

The others said nothing. Leon got rid of the dynamite men and that was good enough. Abyssinian has decided he was not gonna endanger themselves in vain much less protecting the American so it was good to know that he could take care of himself and some enemies while he was at it.  
They continued down the path. The area was full of floor traps, but Aya only grabbed some rocks from the field and used them to trigger the traps on his way.

While there were no enemies around, both Youji and Ken explored the surroundings trying to find any useful item or any clue about their friends while Aya checked the place ahead. Leon suddenly found himself covering their back.  
On the other side of the door, to the left was some boarded up place. Leon though it was suspicious so he got his knife out and slashed the boards. He got an elegant mask from there but noting more.  
"What do you want from that thing for?" asked Youji.  
"We can sell it to that guy in dark clothes if we ever see him again, and maybe buy from him some good stuff later on"  
"Which dark guy?"  
"I'll introduce you to him if we ever meet again." he answered mockingly.

Aya was already out of the rusty door at the end of that place. The others soon joined him. There was just one villager in there and this time Youji took care of him. There were some nasty looking waters down a ladder, but instead of going down there, they went up from another ladder into an open well and towards fresh air.

Yet there was another path which they followed towards a house.  
"/So, what now?/" asked Ken.  
"We will split up here." answered Aya. "/Siberian, you come with me, lets take a look around./ Balinese, you might like to go inside with Leon? Search for some clues in there"  
"Roger that. Wanna come, pretty boy?" said Youji on a teasing tone while Aya and ken turned around the corner.  
"If you insist"  
They both entered the house.

"Quite charming." said Youji with sarcasm in a very low voice. They came across a weird looking door with a green orb in the middle.  
"Now, what's this"  
"Some kind of puzzle?" said Leon touching the orb, and suddenly it moved. 'So the thing can rotate inside.' he thought. "Maybe this thing inside the orb has to match these symbols on the door"  
"I leave it to you, smart fellow." said Youji immediately turning around to check out the room.  
Leon solved the puzzle after a few turns and the door opened. He walked into the door silently but the next room was empty. Youji followed him and they looked for some way to open the next door. There was a key in the box next to the bookshelf. Leon took it and opened the door while Youji still registered everything he could in there, but as soon as Leon stepped outside, Youji froze still.

The door closed behind Leon. But by the sounds Youji got from the other side, he realized they were not alone in the house.  
Actually, Leon had run into the village chief, don Bitores Mendez. This huge man was the one who knocked him out before, capured him and locked him up along with Luis on that cabin, where he woke up to meet the Weiss guys. The agent was really frightened by this encounter, and even more when that brute quickly grabbed him by the neck and lifted him a good foot and a half from the floor trying to choke him to death.  
But Bitores didn't killed him. Something on the agent had called his attention, something in those red eyes that should be sparkling blue instead.  
"You carry the same blood as us, it seems." said the chief in a dangerous voice after throwing Leon to the floor. "Nevertheless, you are an outsider...". Leon tried to crawl backwards rubbing his almost broken neck and trying to breath. "Just remember, if you become 'unpleasant' to our eyes, you'll face severe consequences...". The chief headed for the same door Leon had gone out, so Youji had to think fast.

"What? Same blood?" asked Leon.  
Rigth then, the bipping sound of the intercom cut off Leon's trail of thought.  
"Leon. I've been able to get some new info that might help you." sain agent Hunnigan "Fill me in"  
"Apparently, there's a religious cult group involved. They're called the Los Iluminados"  
"Los Iluminados? That's a mouthful. Anyway, I've had an unexpected run-in with the big cheese of this village"  
"But you're okay, right"  
"Yeah... But he could have killed me, but he let me live... And he mentioned something about me carrying the same blood as them. Whatever that means"  
"'Carrying the same blood...' Hmm... Interesting"  
"Anyway, there are more important things than solving riddles right now"  
"You're right. Hurry and find that church, Leon."

After a short pause the special agent stood up and re-entered the room only to get hit by Bitores. An astray shot hit a man in a portrait right between the eyes as the gun flew off from the agent's hands. Somehow, he ended with his back against the floor again, and Bitores used one foot to keep him there.  
Youji had gone back to the room behind the door with the orb, but he was about to jump into action when he saw the huge monster of a person being shoot in the back from outside.  
That made Bitores turn to the window, where a beautiful woman on a red dress hanged from the ceiling.

"Onna..." Youji was confused, and to watch how that mole ran to the window and jumped out of it at full speed, didn't help. Maybe nor the man nor the woman saw him, good for him.  
"Are you alright?" said Youji helping Leon standing and giving him his weapon.  
"Yeah, what happened"  
"Some cute chick shot that thing"  
"/Balinese, what's going on inside?/" Aya's voice sounded angry through the intercom.  
"/We... Well, Leon had a third kind encounter with some huge guy. He seemed to me like the village chief or something. He left, we are kinda safe now/"  
"/We are going in. Expect a fight/"  
"/Okay, we'll wait downstairs/  
"Prepare your ammo" said Youji to Leon "we might have visitors."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Monster of the Black Lagoon 

Giving the handgun to Youji, both him and Leon headed downstairs after collecting a few scattered stuff. They met Ken and Aya there, who were blocking a window using a shelf.

"All yours." said Aya to Leon and Youji. They both stood in front of the door as some villagers approached. "Just one round and we'll be out"  
"Don't waste ammo shooting anything beside the head." said Leon to Youji.

Then the sound of a chainsaw came to them from outside. The man carrying it was the first one to appear at the door and while Leon shot him and made him fell, Youji took care of the other townsfolk trying to break in with nice shoots in the middle of their foreheads. Yet it took two shots from the shotgun to kill the chainsaw man and at least four from the handgun to bring down a single villager.

"/What the fuck are these things?/" said Youji disgusted with the extra ammo it took to kill the attackers As both shooters reloaded, Aya and Ken sprang out slashing through the people and made their way to the village itself. They came to a halt at a wooden gate, and it was Youji who opened it with an insignia key.

"Found it lying around." he said as explanation.  
They entered the village grounds and found it deserted. Even though, they still scanned every building around, before going to the construction in the middle.  
"When I first came here, I was about to get killed when suddenly a bell tolled on the church and every single villager went through this door." explained Leon.  
Aya tried to open it but it was locked. He then just gave a step aside and Youji came forward, taking out a little case from his coat. Lock picks. It was a matter of two seconds or so for the door to fling open on its own. Youji put away his tools and entered cautiously without anyone saying anything. Leon again was surprised but kept quiet too.

"/Why on earth would anyone have a typewriter in a place like this?/" said Ken when he saw the thing lying on a table in a place where there were little more.  
They soon found themselves in a kind of tunnel. While they followed it, they found... Well, Leon found some valuable objects lying around and decided to save them for sale to the weird merchant.  
Speaking about the devil, this particular character was at the end of the tunnel as well. Ken this time decided to buy from him an attached case, since it seemed they'll be collecting some stuff on the way to rescue their friends.  
After reaching the end of the tunnel, the group went outside to a graveyard and beyond it stood the church. They approached it cautiously but fast enough only to discover it was locked too. It was pointless for Youji to try to open it since some kind of plate or insignia key had to be placed on the door to unlock it, so they have to look out for it.

Youji saw another entrance and headed towards there but then, Hunnigam called again.  
"Leon. Have you reached the church yet?"  
"Ah...well, yeah. Sort of".  
Still Youji went to check that door from earlier while Aya and Ken listened to Leon's conversation - not that Ken understood a great deal of it. "Leon, did I mention not to take the scenic route? At any rate, Ashley's inside that structure. Rescue her. Hurry!"  
'I wonder how she is so damn sure...' thought Leon. "Entering the church is gonna take a while. The door's locked. I can't get in"  
"Didn't they teach you how to pick locks at the academy?"  
"There's some sort of indentation like something might fit inside"  
"Well, there's no use standing around. Leon, you have to find some way or something to get inside."

"No kiddin', lady..." said Youji sarcastically. He arrived just in time to get the women last words. "The door is nailed shut from the other side. No point on trying to pick the lock." he said.  
"We'll split up." said Aya on his commander tone of voice. "With no one around we should look for a way to get in. Balinese, take Siberian and go to the graveyard. Leon and I will take a look at the back of the building. Don't stay too much and be quiet about it, come back here in 15 or less"  
Youji nodded and told Ken to go with him. Then they went back towards the tombs while Leon and Aya turned around the corner. There was a weird object in there, it looked like another puzzle involving some family insignias, but apart from that, there was nothing interesting around. The other two didn't find any useful thing around either, so they met back at the atrium.  
"/Family insignias? They are all over the graves./" said Ken, once Aya told them what they found.  
"/It may be nothing but we should give it a try./" added Youji, with not much excitement.  
So they went back to whatever the thing was and Ken identified the family insignias he saw for the others to know, and it was Leon who solved it... Only to get a green jewel out of it.  
"/What kind of people place such puzzles around for nothing? Damn freaks./" snarled Ken "/... That and the previous one were pretty easy to figure out./" said Youji "/I can't see what's the point./"

Aya said nothing but headed towards the road that ran alongside the church, towards the back. Soon enough, they came to a bridge with some more villagers. Aya was growing tired of them because, unless they had a gun or the damn chainsaw, they were just a mere waste of energy. So this time he didn't bothered to unsheathed his katana and just pushed all of them off the bridge.

The group reached a cabin and Aya found some disturbing documents inside. While he read them along with Leon and Youji, Ken gathered whatever was there that could be of any use. "/Del Lago has awaken?/" said Youji. "/What the fuck is Del Lago"  
"/Means 'from the lake'./" said Aya.  
"Some kind of monster, I guess..." said Leon interpreting what Youji asked though he knew no Japanese at all.  
"/Is there a lake somewhere ahead?/" said Ken who had gone a bit further and then came back just to hear his teammates "/What's from the lake"  
"We'll find out soon enough." answered Aya while getting out of the cabin.

Finally they reached a wooden construction with another merchant in the basement. They got their weapons tuned up and went back up to get to a swampy area.  
"More and more villagers." growled Youji when he saw them.  
The group was about to go and face them when Aya stopped them.  
"Wait here." he said and left alone.  
"/Hey, Abyssinian!/" Ken tried to protest but Youji shut him up.  
"Un forastero!","AgАrrenlo!","Hey, acА!". As soon as the townsfolk spotted Aya, they began screaming and cursing and approaching them fast. Then, there was an explosion.  
"Hold positions!" said Aya through the intercom just when both Ken and Youji were about to jump into action. A few more cursing, shouting and exploding later, Aya spoke again. "The path's clear"  
The trio hurried to catch up with the Weiss leader as he waited for them at the other side of the swamp. On the road, they saw what triggered the explosions: there were dynamite floor traps along the road and judging for all the splashing around, Aya made the villagers themselves trigger every single one of those deadly devices.

"How the hell did Abyssinian saw them?" asked Leon. The others didn't answer as they didn't know either.  
After a cabin there was a skull sign dyed in blood.  
"We hadda be careful here." said Leon. "The last time I saw one of there signs, I found myself interpreting Indiana Jones being chased by some rolling boulder"  
"/Be prepared to run./" said Aya as they all stepped forward to the road.  
And just as Leon had said, a rolling boulder soon chased them down the path, but they managed to avoid being smashed successfully.

At last they reached the damn lake. Ahead of them there was a boat, but instead of going aboard, they took a path to the left to take a look at the muddy waters and hope to catch any sight of the thing named Del Lago.  
Leon used his binoculars.  
"What on earth...??? The other cop!" said Leon when he saw how two men on another boat dropped a corpse to the lake.

"Cop?" asked Youji.  
"I was being escorted by two local police men to this place in the morning. I saw how their truck met the deeps of the river and at first I though they had died, either by the crash or by drowning. But later on I found one of them ending like barbeque at the middle of the town and that's the other one over there. You don't think he is still alive, do you?"

Aya stood up to go back to the boardwalk but then something huge emerged from the water and swallowed the dead man, just to go back to the deeps again.  
"/What the bloody hell was that???/" said Ken.  
"Del Lago." said Aya. The beast had earned a full two raised eyebrows expression from him. It was immense.  
"And we have to go to the other side??" asked Youji looking at Aya, who just turned around and walked to the boat.

They were lucky enough for the two murderous men leaving their boat in there, so the group just killed them and got aboard.  
"Let's try to avoid the thing." said Aya as he and Ken set off followed by Youji and Leon with the other boat.

But avoiding Del Lago was not as easy as it had sounded, as the monstrosity soon appeared blocking both Youji and Leon's path. As it emerged, their anchor dropped and got the beast's tail. As the huge thing started swimming, it dragged along both guys.

It seemed the beast didn't liked to be tied so it tried forcefully to get rid of the blonde's boat, so it swam all about the place at full speed, giving sharp turns, charging against the both the boats from time to time or diving into deep waters only to emerge suddenly trying to destroy them from below. Ken tried his best to keep their boat alongside the other while both him and Youji maneuvered to avoid crashing with the scattered logs floating in the lake or against Del Lago itself.

In the meanwhile, both Leon and Aya threw the sharp harpoons they found laying on the little ships tothe filthy monster. It took a great quantity of those harpoons to kill the huge thing, but it was killed nonetheless. Yet, the group couldn't quite celebrate it because Leon's leg got wrapped up on the anchor rope. He took out his knife and slashed the rope desperately until he could finally tear it off his leg. He then laid on the bottom of the boat. He was really exhausted from that but he was fine... At least he thought so.

They safely got to the other side of the lake, but Leon wasn't feeling alright. At first he thought it has been the adrenaline rush from the fight against Del Lago, but then it wasn't likely. He felt dizzy, disoriented and about to throw up.  
There was a cabin ahead, the Weiss team tried to make him reach it but he passed out right on the spot.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Beauties and the Beast 

Leon woke up screaming from a terrible nightmare in which he saw himself turning into a zombie.  
"Easy now, cowboy." Said Youji who was standing near the window, smoking. "Just don't go ballistic all over me." Leon looked all around. They were in the cabin he barely managed to see from outside before passing out. Outside, the night had covered the land and no sound could be heard at all. "Nice nap you got. You slept for nearly six hours"  
"Was it that long"  
"Sure it was. Abyssinian was considering the option of leaving you behind... Better call your people. That damn device of yours has been bipping every now and then. It took from me not to squash it against a wall."

Speaking of the devil, Hunnigan called again.  
"Leon. It's been 6 hours since out last transmission. I was starting to get worried"  
"Don't you mean lonely?" said the agent on a teasing tone. "Anyway, I started to feel dizzy. And then I guess I must have lost consciousness"  
"Lost consciousness? Maybe it has some connection to what the village chief was talking about"  
Youji had been paying attention. This particular thing he found it very interesting.  
"Can't say. But I'm all right now. I'm gonna continue my mission."

"What did the village chief tell you?" asked Youji once the conversation ended.  
Right then Aya entered the room and looked at Leon, then at Youji.  
"/He had just woke up and contacted his people./" the blonde reported. Then Aya looked back at Leon.  
"Well..." Leon hesitated a bit. The redhead's presence made him uneasy.  
"when I 'met' the chief, he was about to break my neck but he let me go saying that apparently I carried the same blood as them. I don't know what that means"  
The information didn't draw any reaction at all from the Weiss leader, and Leon took that lack of emotion as 'pondering the situation'. Maybe he knew something Leon didn't?  
"Any other interesting information"  
"What do you know about this?" said Leon weary.  
Aya looked intensely at Leon, but after a brief moment, he took a bunch of papers from the pocket of his coat and gave them to the agent.  
"El Gigante..." mumbled Leon. 'What kind of enemy would that be? Its waiting for us'  
"I know there's some kind of religious cult involved. They are called 'Los Iluminados' and I bet this guy Lord Saddler - whoever he is - is the one behind everything; I've heard many villagers call his name, especially when the bells from the church tolled. Chief Mendez must be only another of his followers here. That's all"  
"'The enlighten'? Claver name, pretty original." said Youji with sarcasm.  
"Think you can follow?" said Aya.  
Leon nodded and stood up. Aya just turned around and both Youji and Leon followed him.  
"Where is Siberian"  
"He went to the cave at the other corner of the lake. He is on his way back"  
"What did you do all the time I was out?" asked Leon as a boat approached.  
"The same as you. We all needed it too." answered Youji.  
Then Ken arrived, He was carrying a brand new rifle.  
"Wow, you found another merchant.", Ken didn't quite got the message but didn't asked for translation. They headed north from the cabin, where there was another locked gate. Again Youji worked his magic to open it.

At the other side of it two villagers were waiting. Youji still had the handgun and his first reaction was to shoot them down, but he didn't got the time. He was petrified by horror when their heads got swollen and exploded like a soap bubble. They all expected the bodies to drop down and melt, but instead they grew tentacles where their heads once stood. Even Aya got scared, but unlike the others, he sprang into action.  
"Shoot them down!" he said taking the handgun from Youji and pulling the trigger savagely. The sound of the loads made the other's react. Just as said, Leon shoot those things down using the shotgun.  
"/What the bloody hell were those things?/" said Youji before Aya gave him again the handgun.  
"/Enemies./" said Aya coldly, So kill them as soon as you see them next time was the complete message and Youji got it perfectly. He was a professional and they were all in danger. A mistake like being frozen solid out of panic would get them killed and the hostages too.

No more mistakes allowed. Normally it would be Ken the one to get stunned like that but not him... Which made him wonder if such thing had happened. He turned around looking for his partner... Yeah, he was really disturbed. First Del Lago and now people whose heads explode and grow tentacles. Ken was having a really hard time and being a fan of horror movies didn't helped him one bit.

"/Let's go, Siberian./" called Youji to his still startled comrade. The familiar voice finally sank in and Ken shook his head to get rid of any bad impressions.  
"/Let's do this./" he said a bit more cheerful. "/No more fooling around./"

By then Aya was climbing up a ladder with Leon behind him. "So, who are you loking for in here?" asked Leon to no one in particular.  
"Two girls who were abducted back in Japan..." answered Youji "and also a comrade, Bombay. We lost him in the woods near the village; your friend, the chief, got him"  
"And who are the girls"  
"Not of your business" Aya ended the conversation

The four of them arrived at a gated river with a walkway a little above the water lever to cross current to the other side. It didn't seem secure enough to Aya, at least not in the darkness.  
"/Siberian./" called the leader. "/Examine this"  
Ken walked to the front of the group and lowered his goggles to his eye level. He pushed a little hidden button on one side and crouched down to look at the walkway. "/Looks good enough for me." said the brunette standing up a little puzzled, pushing the same button again and pulling away his goggles.  
"/This destruction over here, maybe it was done by some power tearing the walkway down, a huge weight placed right on the spot... But the remainings look solid enough./"

That was all Aya needed to know. The stepped forward and tested the walkway endurance. It didn't even made a single creak under Aya's weight. It was as a secure as any nearly tore off water gate walkway could be. They kept walking until they reached a sudden end of the road, a kind of cliff. From a pole on the stonewall to the left hung a rope going down all the way to the bottom. Pressed against the wall and with the others right behind him and imitating him, Aya peeked downwards. The fall was large from his point of view.

A few things concerned Aya. The first one was their actual position. Though they were high enough to have certain advantage over an attack from bellow, the tables will turn around when they were descending. Once on the wall they would be totally vulnerable. "/Siberian, take a look around. Use the rifle scope too"  
Ken again lowered his goggles and laid flat on the floor. He pressed the same button on the goggles and looked around, first without the scope, then with it. After finishing, he pressed a different button and proceeded like before. "/Clear"  
"/Cover us./" ordered Abyssinian He then proceeded to test the pole pushing it down. It didn't move. But will the rope resist their way down? "Balinese, use your cable and go ahead. Leon, please follow Youji using the rope"  
"Wanna test it?" said Leon not waiting for an answer, hanging the shotgun on his back and following Youji, who was already tying the wire to the pole.

The descend was quick. Youji was supposed to help Leon in case something happened to the rope, but they came down to the bottom without any trouble. Aya had been looking at them, at the pole and at the rope, for any signals of problems but nothing happened. So he took the rope and went down; he was damn fast about it. As soon as he was down, Siberian followed them.  
They soon arrived to another part of town. Whether this place belonged to the previous village or not was unknown but they found out that quickly enough as a flying axe missed Ken's head by mere millimeters thanks to his sharp reflexes. In the blink of an eye, Youji turned to the direction the axe came from and shot. Apparently he didn't aim, but a corpse fell from the nearby tower to Leon's amazement. The assassin shot the man two more times until his remains dissolved.  
Aya made Ken a signal, so the shorter man climbed up to the place where his attacker had been. There, he inspected the surroundings as far as he could see. "/Clear./"

He went down and joined the others further into that place. There was no one around.  
"/Where are we, anyway?/" said Ken when they found nothing of interest there.  
There was this lone construction in the middle of nowhere. It had electrical service but also used pretty primitive machinery. Dividing the place was a river which came from a cascade at the other side from where they were and behind them was another water gate which let the water flow but not marking the limit of the construction and that was it.

"/Judging by the water gate we crossed previously, and the location of this weird station, I think this might be some kind of dam system or something to control the running waters direction./ Leon, please show me you map". As he was asked, Leon took out the map and showed it to the Weiss team. "Look, here's the water gate, and here we are now; both water branches come from the same river. And check this out, there's some kind of passage on the cascade direction." The three English speakers looked at the waterfall but there was no sign of any road next to it, nor a way to go up. "Where should the road be"  
Aya studied the surroundings before attempting to ask. "Behind the waterfall."

Both Youji and Leon looked at him waiting for a more detailed explanation. "This area is higher than the place where we passed the water gate. We must find a way to open that gate so the water takes that detour and stops coming here."

"So water stops falling and we can see what's behind it, good." though Youji aloud.  
"We have already registered all this part of the place. We are only missing what's on the other side of the stream. How do we get there?" asked Leon.  
"/Shoot those down./" Aya pointed at some crates hanging from ropes just above the current. Both Youji and Ken looked at them.  
"/The crates?/" asked Ken confused. He was starting to hate not understanding much English.  
"/The ropes./" said Youji getting the message and aiming for his target. "/Don't break the crates. Let's hope they float./" Both Youji and Ken shot with the handgun and the rifle respectively and the crates fell neatly to the water. The current dragged them to the water gate where they stuck. The force of the river was pushing the crates holding them firmly against the gate, creating this way a fine bridge.

Youji crossed followed by Ken. They both registered the zone until they climbed up a platform. "/Here's a lever./" said Youji to Aya with the intercom "/I'll pull it"  
He did so, and just as Aya expected, the cascade became thin until no more water fell at all. But right then, they were greeted by more villagers screams and threats.

"Mierda", "Forasteros", "AgАrrenlos". Something like twenty of them came from a cave behind the waterfall. Youji hurried back as Ken started shooting them from the platform. Leon also shoot and little did Aya do but walk towards the entrance once all the enemies were down.  
Far inside, it looked like they had reached a dead end, but Aya found a Round Insignia. According to what they all could remember about the church entrance, this thing would fit perfectly. The amatheist eyes sparkled in the dark like those of the cat breed he got his codename from. Absentmindedly, Leon called Ingrid.

"I've obtained an object that resembles the cult group's insignia." he said.  
"Wonderful, Leon. Head back to the church. Ashley's safety is our immediate priority"  
"Do you really have to report everything you do? It's not like she says anything you don't already know..." said Youji mockingly "Well, that's out of habit" answered Leon

They proceeded trough the door on the wall of the tunnel and came to.  
"/The cave of the lake/" whispered Ken This time, Aya worked his way to the merchant's bargains and got some really good upgrades for all their weapons. He was also thinking of getting one himself but there was nothing that could fully convince him. They took the boat on the dock and rode all the way to the swampy area were the redhead blew up all the enemies with the dynamite floor traps.

"Siberian" called Aya "/guide us"  
Ken nodded and for the third time he pulled his goggles down. Looking at how it was Siberian who led them through the night, Leon couldn't help but ask

"Are those some kind of night vision goggles or something?" He asked Youji "he actually has both heat and nighttime vision on those"  
"Oh, I thought he just had a weird sense of fashion"  
"we all thought that once"

Quickly enough they reached the little mining fortress were they found the basement merchant. But as soon as they stepped on the open field, the wooden doors fell on their places and locked up. then a huge iron gate on the stone wall creaked open.  
"/Sweet, now what?/" mumbled Youji with disdain as a group of townspeople appeared They didn't attack them, because they were pulling some ropes. The team worried a lot when they heard a horrible roar coming from inside the cave.  
"/what the hell...?/" Youji didn't even finished the sentence

"El Gigante" said Aya frowning "/The Giant"  
There was no need to ask from explanations since a huge monstrosity came out of the cave, growling, roaring and crushing all the villagers as if they were mere insects. "/Was this some kind of trap?/" asked Ken "/One that blew up in their ugly faces.../" answered Youji It turned towards the team after having killed all the townsfolk and when his terrible hand didn't squash anything as it hit the hard floor - everyone dodged in time -, he got even more angry.

"Shoot him down!" ordered Aya as he made a run to call the monster attention. He had on him most of the grenades they had found along the road, so he used them wisely. Leon with the shogun had to be very close to the monster to really make him any damage. Ken was far away aiming the riffle. Youji helped Aya distract the thing.

With all the shoots he took - a considerable amount of - the monster was brought to his knees with an evil tentacle thing sprouting from his back as a sinister blossom of death. Aya saw his opportunity. He dashed towards the beast and climbed to his back grabbing one of the revolting appendixes. Silver flashes slashed through the putrid and stinking flesh on a deadly dance, sticky fluids splashing all around.

The giant roared in pain once more and stood up. In order to avoid a nasty fall, Aya drove his blade into the swollen flesh. But the creature tried to shake him off. Bullets from his friends' guns spat all over the beast, but it didn't keep it from finally grabbing Aya . The man had managed to take out one last grenade just before the living abomination tried to crush him to a bloody pulp; so when Aya was face to face with it, he threw the grenade to that blue deformed visage. It was a flash grenade, Aya didn't saw what kind it was when he took it, but it startled the beast enough to let go of the Weiss leader almost unharmed. Aya fell and rolled away while his partners still shoot the monster. It was brought to his knees a second time and Aya swore this was it.

Again the redhead climbed to where his sword and the tentacles were. Furiously enough, he dragged out his sword from the main body and chopped down every single bit of the disgusting thing. A last roar was heard from the giant and it moved no more.  
Aya's legs gave away under his own weight, so he had no more alternative than to sit on the wide-as-a-log neck. From Leon's point of view, it was as if someone had unplugged the redhead from his energy supply. The hell if he was exhausted... And damn dirty.

"Abyssinian, daiyobu desu ka?" called Youji concerned "Shimpai nai" the redhead answered

Curious as he was, Youji climbed up to were his friend was only to look at the remainings of the huge thing "/nice chopping/" he said looking around. Aya glared to him dangerously but the full impact of it was lost since the blonde was pecking at the flesh with his boot. "/What's this?/" he said crouching near the damn wound. He inserted his gloved hand a little inside the wound on a way it made Aya's stomach unsettle. Aya stood up like lightning and turned to go when the blonde laughed.

"/what's your damage, Balinese?/" growled Aya annoyed "/lend me your sword/" said Youji still looking at whatever he had found "/no way"  
Smiling weirdly Youji turned to Leon "Hey, cowboy, lend me you knife"

Not knowing what was going on, Leon gave his knife to Youji. The Japanese blond stabbed the corpse and pushed the knife to the side, making the wound bigger. Then he used the knife to bring something to the surface. A golden sparkle captured everyone's attention.  
"/What kind of sick people hide gold ingot inside a monster like this?/" said Ken "/there's more in there... Want me to take it out?/" Youji grinned at Aya. The redhead only turned around disgusted. Youji interpreted that as an 'As you please'. So he continued. Somehow he was amused as how Aya had reacted, so he couldn't stop grinning. Gold was still gold, and he didn't though the merchant would reject it. Maybe they could buy something bigger this time.

When Youji finished and they turned around they found no trace of Aya. Both Ken and Youji were slashed with a sudden fear, but Youji thought about it twice. He took the gold and went towards the merchant basement with the others following him.

The sudden contraction of his stomach was a mere reflex. Aya hadn't eaten anything in the whole day so it was completely empty. He went towards the basement where he had seen a water barrel the first time they went in. He asked about it to the merchant and the man said he could use it at will. Aya found a piece of cloth laying around and used the water to soak it and clean himself up - obviously enough, he didn't introduced the cloth on the barrel, but rather inclined it. That way he washed his face, his hands, his sword and his coat too. He didn't mind his boots enough to care about sticky stains and of course he dried up his sword right away.

Then Aya felt an almost an irrational urgency to take a bath - which would be more likely impossible given the circumstances. Then he was reminded of a time when he was told by Ken about having some kind of cleaning obsession... 'If Ken had got this all over, he would be the one with OCD' Aya though a bit angry. Then he heard the others coming.

"/Would you care to tell us when you wander off?/" said Youji angry Aya saw three golden bars on his hands. The only thing he could do was turn to the exit with a scowl in his face.  
Youji didn't bought anything. He rather cleaned himself and the golden bars, and followed Aya, the same as the rest.

Once outside Ken lead them back to the church but he stopped his rush at the bridge.  
"/There is something up ahead.../" he whispered "/I couldn't see exactly what it was.  
"/with which vision do you saw it?/" asked Aya.  
"/both, but barely. Better with the nighttime vision.  
Aya nodded telling them to continue. Leon asked Youji in a low voice what had happened, but the other answered he didn't know either, but they better be ready for a welcome committee

The three Weiss members moved quickly and quietly, almost as if they were Leon's shadows. Suddenly Ken readied the riffle and shoot. "Leon!" he called taking cover along with Youji and Aya, while a pained howl was heard piercing the night

Leon moved forward preparing the shotgun "/what is it?/" asked Youji "Mutant wolves?!" answered Leon when he saw them running for them Both Ken and Leon shoot the animals. Youji and Aya protected their backs. One of the gross wolves grew tentacles on his back and one of those slashed Ken on a leg. That didn't kept him from shooting. No more enemies appeared and soon enough the beast were a bubbling muddy spot on the road.

"/Are you ok, Siberian?/" asked Aya "Yeah, its just a scratch"  
Without further incidents they reached the church.

"/I don't quite like the idea of entering by the main door/" said Ken when Aya placed the round insignia on the hole in the door and opened it.  
Aya peeked inside. Despite there were no windows - and what did it matter anyway since it was nighttime - the place had very good illumination thanks to the many candelabra with lighten up candles. Thanks to their light, Aya could see that the building was rather crammed with long seats at both sides of a old ruined red carpet leading to a stone altar on a dais at the back. Though the place looked like it could use some maintenance there were some golden objects scattered around the pulpit. The most important thing was: there was no one around. Aya even stood quietly listening to be sure, but there were no sounds of any kind.

Not liking it one bit, the redhead dragged his sword out and entered the place without fully opening the door. It could be a trap, so he decided to investigate before letting his partners enter. Sword in hand he slowly walked towards the podium... Still, he couldn't spot any threat.

"/Come in/" he said through the intercom and others came in closing the door behind them.  
The team registered the place fully. Aya discovered a hidden ladder going up to the second floor. It was a walkway all around the church but a section of it was blocked by some iron bars, diving the second floor in two, and behind them, there was wooden door. The hostages, if any, had to be there.

All of them looked for something to open a way through the bars - a button, a lever, any weird hidden mechanism -, but they found nothing. Unwilling to give up, Aya realized they hadn't searched the section of the second floor right across from where he stood. But there was no way to reach that place, the iron bars blocked the walkway and there was no ladder on the other site. Unless...

Aya jumped out of the second floor's ledge, for everybody complete astonishment, and landed on the huge chandelier.  
"/You think you are the phantom of the opera?/" said Youji from below, and quickly went towards a wall to take cover in case the huge thing fell down.  
Aya jump gave the chandelier the right momentum for him to jump again and land perfectly on the former inaccessible side of the walkway.

"/Found something?/" asked Ken.  
"The lightning control panel." there was nothing more, but when he said that the others noticed the RGB projections on the wall above the altar.  
"/Why do they waste candles when they have electricity?/" mumbled Youji "/Those are cheaper?/" guessed Ken from the second floor.

Apart from the classical on/off button, the control panel had another four labeled 'Red', 'Green', 'Blue' and 'Combine'. There was also a rotating switch labeled 'Rotate'  
"Is something the matter?" asked Leon.  
Aya didn't answered. He was studying closely the prismatic projections. He had a theory of how the stuff worked, but he wasn't quite sure, so he pressed the combine button. Then the 3 lights merged on a single distorted picture, but after a brief moment they went back to their original positions.  
'/Bingo/' he though.  
"What was that?" asked Leon but again he had no response.

Aya selected a color pushing the button he wanted, and rotated the projection with the switch. He kept doing that until, he was satisfied and again pressed the combine button.  
This time the lights merged perfectly on a white beam, projecting the cult insignia over the altar "/Crazy bastard/" mumbled Youji when the iron bars were removed.

Aya didn't move, both Ken and Leon approached the door while Youji climbed the ladder.  
"Now!" a voice screamed when Ken opened the door.  
"/Hey, watch it/". A small wooden crate could have hit his head if he hadn't reacted quickly enough to destroy it with the blades of his bugnuks.  
"Don't come!" another piece of good flew towards Leon, but he catch it in midair "Take it easy!" he said to the pair of girls in there and.  
"KENKEN!" A boy said wide-eyed in disbelief "/You came for us.  
"Omitchi..." Answered the other man.  
"Ken-san" said one of the girls, the brunette, teary-eyed already.

"who are you?" asked the blond girl.  
"Calm down. Everything's going to be just fine. My name's Leon, I'm under the President's order to rescue you"  
"What? My father"  
"That's right, and have to get you out of here. Come with me."

"Sakura-chan..." said the older brunette. There was not real happiness on either of them "/Aya-san and Youji-san too?/" she said when the other two appeared in the door "/Why are all of you here? Why are all of you dressing like that?/". Let's say there was a bit of apprehension on her voice.  
Yeah, Omi had been held capture with the two girls all along, but it seemed they didn't talked a lot. Omi just couldn't confess everything to Sakura all by himself.

"/Uhm, Sakura-chan... We are Aya's colleagues.../" the boy managed to say.  
"/The flower shop its only our cover/" added Ken.  
"/Then.../" whatever she was going to say, Aya interrupted.  
"/why?/" the man was emotionless as ever. Was he angry or something? He even had his eyes shut. "/Why did you switched places with my sister? Your life could've been in danger.  
The girl didn't looked at him, she rather looked down all blushed up. "/Because I wanted to do something for you. Because... I love you"  
Aya opened his eyes, at last something showed up on them: hurt and sorrow. He couldn't look back at her either, so he looked away. "/I'm a killer, Sakura-chan.../".

"/No!/" she said turning to him. He was surprised for the passion on her voice "/I understand now... You fight for the good of all of us.  
"/There's no good or bad when it comes to killing/" said Youji.  
"/But I believe in all of you... In Aya-san.../" she hid her face with her hands, tears raining down as sobs shook her frame a little. The four guys looked as if they were in a funeral, so solemn, so sad.  
"/Arigatou/" said Aya breaking the uneasy silence and placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. No one had ever heard him use such soft and comforting tone of voice. "I was able to see my sister because of you." Aya got closer to Sakura with both hands on her shoulders. "/Once I save my sister, I will tell you my story/". His eyes were sincere and warm.

"Aya-san..." even Sakura was speechless, because she had never seen him like that "/It's Ran. My real name its Ran/". The three other men looked at each other. Not even them knew his leader real name until now despite they were well aware Aya was his sister's name.  
The little girl's smile was brighter than the summer sun on a clear day. "/let's go/" He said and she nodded Ken offered his jacket to Sakura - thanks to Youji's discrete suggestion -, since the night was cold and she was wearing only a white sleeveless dress.

Leon and Ashley were confused, they didn't get what was going on. But the agent took the intercom and contacted Hunnigan.  
"It's Leon. I've succeeded in extricating my subject"  
"Good work, Leon. I'll send a chopper over right away"  
"What's the extraction point"  
"There's another trail that you can take to get out of the village. The chopper will pick you up beyond there"  
"Got it. I'm on my way."

They all went out of the room totally skipping presentations. Leon noticed the other girl's smile lifted everyone's mood a bit... Except for the boy. A weird shadow was cast over him. He looked away to the void; his huge blue eyes betraying a little sorrow. No one could imagine - and Leon couldn't have known - that Aya's... Or rather Ran's little promise to Sakura, reminded him of the one he had cared the most but he had failed to protect. Sakura's smile reminded him of that from his own little sister Ouka-chan. And the memory hurt deep inside.

Well, at first Leon though no one noticed, but.  
"Ikimasu, Bombay..." called Aya almost in the same soft voice he had talked to the girl 'He is Bombay???' Leon though. 'He is just a boy.  
Such boy just looked up at his teammate. Maybe Aya understood.  
"/This time we'll finish business for sure/" he said.  
That was a promise too. Omi dared to hope for an end to all this misery. The dark cloud disappeared as he joined the others outside.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Curse for the cursed 

The group went all the way to ladder and down to it, for a break to the door. Leon and Ashley had already reached it, the younger Weiss pair were a bit behind them, the older and Sakura were still in the hallway.

"That's as far as you'll go" said someone from behind the altar "I'll take the kids". There was an old guy dressed in robes and carrying a staff in one hand. He was the man in the portrait which got shoot by Leon's stray bullet back at chief Mendez house, no way the special agent and Youji would mistake him.  
"Who are you?" Leon's question was out of place "If you must know, my name is Osmund Saddler, the master of this fine...religious community"  
"What do you want?" demanded Omi furious "To demonstrate to the whole world, our astounding power, of course. No longer will the United States think they can police the world forever. So we kidnapped the President's daughter, in order to give her our power, and then send her back"  
"No..." whispered Ashley. "Leon, I think they shot something in my neck"  
"We just planted her a little...gift. Oh, there's going to be one hell of a party when she returns home to her loving father." the man's laughter was creepy. "But before that, I thought I might bargain with the President for some...donations. Believe it or not, it takes quite a lot of money to keep this church up and running"  
"Faith and money will lead you nowhere, Saddler"  
"Oh, I believe I forgot to tell you that we gave you and the other kids the same gift"  
"What?" Youji snapped "When I was unconscious..." whispered Leon "Oh, I truly hope you like our small, but special contributions. When the eggs hatch, you'll become my puppets. Involuntarily, you'll do as I say. I'll have total control over Your minds. Don't you think this is revolutionary way to propagate one's faith"  
"Sounds more like an alien invasion if you ask me"  
Right then Aya jumped out of the ledge of the second floor, landing safely between Saddler and the group. His katana was still sheathed but not for long, he was holding it dangerously.  
"Where's my sister?" he growled revealing a bit of the deadly steel.  
"Oh, the pretty Japanese girl? Well, we have another purposes reserved for her.  
"Give her back.  
"I'm afraid I cant do that. You know, she hadn't aged a bit since she got into coma, two years ago. We need her badly, so she'll stay with us at the lab.  
"SHINE!" that was Abyssinian in whole Takatori-shine mode dashing towards Lord Saddler with his deadly blade begging for a taste of blood. But the man leaned against the wall and disappeared as it turned around, barely missing the frosty touch of the steel. At the same time, the church doors opened and two other guys looking like hooded monks appeared. They were armed with crossbows and immediately fired against the group. Leon grabbed Ashley and go crashing through the window, and into the side shed. The steel crossbow bolts narrowly missing hitting both of them thanks to the Weiss team counter attack.  
"Hey, You okay?" asked Leon to Ashley.  
"Leon, what's going to happen to us.  
"Don't worry, we got into this mess, we can get out of it.  
"/Balinese!" Aya's scream was perfectly heard from the other side of the wall "take care of Sakura!/".

Out of the building, the Weiss were pulling a complete racket.  
"Stay close!" said Leon to Ashley as they joined the others.  
There were nearly 20 enemies outside, not all of them still standing. From behind the barrier Aya and Ken were pulling up, Youji shot a powder barrel on the cart near the graveyard doors. It blew up 5 of the people around and the cart went away in flames, rolling over 2 more of the aggressors and setting them on fire too.  
"Shotgun!" screamed Leon and quickly enough Aya and Ken gave him space to fire at will.

With the area clean and not waiting for more opponents, the group ran to the shack with the tunnel leading to the village.  
Again they met the merchant and they armed themselves for the next campaign. Leon traded the shotgun for the riot gun, and got it and Ken's riffle tuned up.  
"/I lost my crossbow when they took me, but I think this one will do good enough./" He was talking about a crossbow he had taken from the monks they killed. He was cautious enough to take all the bolts they were carrying. "Still, I'm gonna miss my black bow. I had it for years.  
"/You can ask Burman to buy you a new one as compensation/" said Youji as he paid for the blacktail gun. "/Bombay, by the way.../" Ken gave the boy his leather case.  
"/Oh, you found my darts! Thanks/." Omi took the case and secured it on place.  
"/Also, Bombay/" Aya had just paid for an attached case "/take care of these/". Inside the case was all their stock of fragmentation and incendiary grenades.  
Alarmed, Leon grabbed reflexively Aya's arm, something he regretted almost right away by the way Aya looked at him "Are you sure of that?" he said seriously.  
"Don't let your guard down on Bombay just because he is a kid" said Aya getting rid of Leon's touch.  
"He is the veteran here" added Youji as matter-of-factly as he could.  
Omi ignored the comment. Leon didn't even have the time to think about the implications of that statement. Ken needed instructions and he needed them the fast the better. He couldn't stand not knowing what to do at the middle of a mission.  
"/So, now what?/" he asked to both Omi and Aya, once they left behind the merchant. They were in the little room with the typewriter.  
"We need to get back my computer. All the information I retrieved from this guys is on it. I couldn't check it, but we might find Aya-chan's whereabouts quicker and also any clue about a way to get us rid of whatever they injected us with.  
"Is there any way they can hack their way into the information.  
"Nop... Well, there's always a way, but everything is encrypted. They'll need a hacker as good as me to get it and you know we don't sprout everywhere. On top of that, we are talking about MY computer. I will take them long only to have it running anything besides a black screen. I just hope they don't try to break it"  
"Leon, please lend us your map" said Aya.  
Again Leon gave the map to them.  
"The Village is behind this door.  
"There aren't many places to go after reentering it..." said Bombay looking at the place in he map.  
"We first came in using this path over here" pointed Aya.  
"I used this one" said Leon identifying the road for them. "There is mere waste land beyond that gate"  
"Since we are here already, we must go around to this place over there. It's the only other exit.  
"My people are supposed to send over a helicopter. Hunnigan told me to go right that way, but instead of being an exit, I think that path only take us further into chaos"  
"Maybe. But as I said before, there's not much place to go... /Kill at sight?/" asked Bombay to Abyssinian. All the Weiss members looked at him nod.  
"/No point asking questions/" he said and they got ready.  
Everyone readied their weapons and stepped outside. A few people tried to stop them but not even Leon knew what the hell hit them.  
They made a run for the door Omi pointed in the map and quickly entered a farm area. More townsfolk were waiting there. The three younger Weiss and Leon covered Youji as he took the girls towards the nearby granary. With his brand new weapon he took out of the way 2 men before they reached the second story of the building. The trio went out through the window to a creaking platform. They were at the end of it and going down a ladder at the other side of a tall wooden fence blocking their path towards a back door, by the time the place was clear of infected people. Taking care about the bear traps, the older Weiss and the two girls reached the door.  
"It's locked from the other side. There's no way to open it from here" he said to the group while they got reunited again "Let me help". Giving his crossbow to Ken, Omi climbed the door with Youji's help. Leon noticed the kid had some small goggles on, similar to those of Siberian and wondered if they had the same use. Omi looked around from the top of gate, before daring to jump to ground. When he did jumped to the other side, quickly unlocked the door.  
Instead of the happy faced Omi some expected to see, a very concerned one approached Ken and took the crossbow from him. "/Don't freaking like this/" he mumbled for Aya to hear. Both of them walked ahead of the group just out of habit, because it wasn't the smartest thing to do considering they were relaying on a crossbow and a three-foot blade.  
They found another merchant ahead, near a bridge over a stream.  
"/Those guys are everywhere!/" said Ken a bit upset. Omi waited until everyone passed him before attempting to cross the bridge. Ken had gone first followed by Aya. Leon came next along with Ashley, Then Sakura and Youji, and Omi was the last one.  
"Leon, I have some bad news." Hunnigan voice could be heard when Leon answered the call of his intercom.  
"I'd rather not hear it"  
"Well, I'm afraid I have to tell you anyway. We've lost contact with the chopper. Somebody must have shot it down though, we can't determine who"  
"Great.  
"We're prepping another chopper for you. Meanwhile, I want you to head towards the extraction point"  
"Got it"  
"Will she ever say anything nice to you?" asked Youji.  
Ken and Aya had already reached the other side of the bridge, but right then.  
"Here they come!" screamed Omi and a fragmentary grenade explosion made emphasis on his call. No point firing crossbow bolts, they were too many.  
"/This way too!/" said Ken shooting with the rifle to the mad men coming from across the bridge. A few people fell.  
"What are we gonna do, Leon?" asked Ashley scared "I hate to say it, but we're sandwiched all right"  
"Quickly! Into the cabin!" Ordered Aya. They all ran to it with another explosion covering their retreat.  
Leon, Ashley, Sakura and Youji were the first ones to get in.  
"Leon." said a very familiar voice from inside. Sera was there and tossed the doorjam to Aya who had just got in. Aya grabbed it alright and passed it to Ken so he could block the door. "Small world, eh"  
"Who are you?" asked Aya in a very dangerous tone of voice.  
But Sera's attention was driven to Ashley's breast "Well, I see that the President's equipped his daughter with ballistics too"  
"How rude! And I don't believe there's any relevance with my figure and my standing. Who are you.  
"Ho ho, excuse me, Your Highness. Perhaps the young lady might want to introduce herself first before asking someone his name.  
"Her name's Ashley Graham, the President's daughter.  
"Is she... You know. ©.  
"Don't worry. She's cool"  
A dart flew and missed Luis neck by mere millimeters.  
"Next one won't miss. I thought you were asked a question two times already. Answer now or you'll die here and now". Omi threaten was scary as hell "He is Luis Sera. He was the prisoner I told Hunnigan about, remember?" said Leon to Aya. The redhead was not completely satisfied with that answer.  
"And who are you, people.  
"Weiss" said Aya.  
"That's all you need to know" stated Omi.  
"Nice friends you got. You know if they... Ehh, nevermind. There's supposed to be some obvious symptom before you turn into one of them anyway"  
In the meanwhile, Youji and Ken had barricaded the whole damn place.  
"Quit the chat already, gentlemen!" said Youji "They are coming for us"  
"Ashley, Sakura, upstairs!" Both girls did as they were told. Omi and Ken followed them up as they had the largest range weapons, the other four remained down. "Okay, its game time" said Sera.  
Despite the blocked windows, the mad people managed to break into only to get shoot by either Leon's Riot gun - if they dared enter by the window he was watching -, Sera's Red9 or Youji's Blacktail - if they entered by the other one.  
"/They are too many!/" said Youji when he noticed the main door had been torn apart and Aya was fighting back only with his sword.  
With this many foes around close range combat was unavoidable. A silver string flew through the place and a few people got their necks broken -or worse - by a terrible pull on it. Youji fought alongside Aya keeping most enemies from entering.  
They synchronized perfectly. Whether a head was severed or a body flew by the air only to get the skull smashed hard against the floor, hardly anything that came close to them survived. Whenever they cleared a circle around themselves, Youji pulled out the Blacktail again and shot like a possessed. Reloading was the problem, but Aya covered him completely. Still with that many bodies being slashed through, the wire lost edge so there was no other option but to severe it and drag a brand new shiny piece of it. At that pace, he will run out of it and replace the cartridge in the watch was not something he could do fast enough.  
Outside there were explosions. Most likely, Omi had run out of bolts and darts, and was using the grenades.  
"Abyssinian!" Omi's voice called him through the intercom "/We can't hold them back any longer.  
"/They'll break in!/" screamed Ken.  
"AYA!" Youji turned around just in time to watch his leader shake off an enemy who had grabbed him from behind. "I'm almost out of ammo!" he said, relief replaced by adrenaline rush.  
"Upstairs!" Said Luis. Nor Youji or Aya wasted time following him. Leon also went up covering them with the Riot gun shoots.  
Omi couldn't fight anymore. He was almost out of grenades too. The only thing he did was to make room for the others; he climbed to the wooden logs supporting the ceiling and stood there, felling kind like Leon before the man passed out.  
Beneath him Ken and Luis managed to send a shelf down the stairs and it took off some people. Youji had found an alcohol bottle. The idea of setting up a Molotov bomb fled him as he realized they all were in a wooden house. Instead he had a much more creative idea. He took out his lighting and took a drink of the bottle. He turned towards the men who were trying to break in by the nearest window, placed the lightning before his face and spit all the alcohol on the men's face. The huge flame that resuted burned the damn villager and sent him screaming to the floor some feet below. The blond then was able to push down the ladder they were using.  
It was madness, real madness. Leon and Luis took care of the stairs as most of their enemies came up that way, Youji protected one window, and Aya and Ken the other. It looked like the end for all of them, but suddenly.  
"Vámonos..." the people stopped they attack as suddenly as it had started.  
It was dawn.


End file.
